Night Moves: Pop Music in the Late '70s

by Don Breithaupt, Jeff Breithaupt

The late '70s brought us an eclectic mix of popular music -everything from big hits (and even bigger hair) to cult favorites, along with the dawn of disco and punk, the coming of corporate rock, the rise of reggae and new wave, and some of the most progressive, inventive songwriting of the century.

Whether you cranked up your radio for Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Supertramp, the Bee Gees, Talking Heads, Rickie Lee Jones, or Earth, Wind and Fire, you'll relive those heady days with this compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes account of the "Frampton years," an era when pop became very big business. It's all here, from ABBA to Zevon. This feisty, funny volume will leave pop fans of every stripe feeling Reunited, Afternoon Delight-ed, and Still Crazy After All These Years.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published July 17, 2000

Reviews

[T.MAGIK · Rating 5 out of 5]

all about the facts.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I coauthored this book with my brother and give us each 2.5 stars.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up musically in the 70s. I remember the first song I ever noticed and tried to request by calling up the radio DJ being Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom.” Later, in the 80s, I would reach into the past, but only 10-15 years, for most of my musical listening, rejecting what was popular at the time to listen to what had been unpopular in its time: that music between the late 60s and the demise of the Beatles to the creation of MTV and the shift of music from an aural-only media to one that required a visual touch (the latter, I’ll admit, I didn’t resist entirely, as I wanted my MTV, too). This book covers that time period.

The authors love to mix in titles and lyrics into their coverage, sometimes so much that I wonder how this ever flew under the radar of the RIAA, which polices copyright on lyric use with a religious fervor. But the book is about music, so I guess that counts more as fair use than using lyrics in fiction. If you’re familiar with these songs, then every page is full of easter eggs as you recognize these references. Overall, though, this is a big picture overview of a lot of music from 1975-1980 and I missed going in depth on some of these subjects. I enjoyed the book, but I’m not sure I would recommend it.